The presentation of advertisements (“ads”) via network-accessible electronic services is now ubiquitous. In one well known model, an advertising system can present ads in response to the content-related characteristics of information received from (or delivered to) a user. For example, the advertising system can present an ad for a swim suit in response to the user's entry of a search term “beach” into a search engine interface. As a result of this provision, the end user may receive an ad that is potentially related to the current context of the user's interaction with an electronic service.
The above types of advertising systems are not without their shortcomings. For instance, the user's interests may not always correlate well with the content-related characteristics of the user's interaction with an electronic service. Accordingly, an advertising system which relies solely on this consideration may provide uneven performance.
In general, it would be desirable to provide an ad delivery system that is more robust and flexible than the above-described systems. It would also be desirable to provide an ad delivery system which better accommodates alternative types of contractual relationships that may exist among network-enabled entities.